GOG, with your permission I would like to use our wonderful forum here to show another website what I think could make their forum...better. I will leave the name gog.com out of the post. In fact, here's the post, you can read it yourselves!
Now before I get started, I'm not, in the least, saying that (here is the name of the forum) isn't a functioning forum, in fact, its probably the second best forum that I've ever been a member of. Second best, thats good. I've been on a lot of forums, but I believe that like anything, it can improve.
Before I start I must say that I am a kid. I realize that I am going to get flamed for my opinions, mostly because I'm just a 14 year old, making me stupid and immature, fine, so be it, its still my opinion and I'm going to share it.
I will not disclose the name of the forum. I am not advertising their website, I won't even tell you what they are about, but I will say that they are a hobby site just like ours, and I will say they have the greatest online community I have ever been on.
I'm going to start with a few examples. One topic that I saw recently on their forum was a question, "Any Gay Gamers on here?". Woah, stop because at this point we are throwing an extremely contrevercial topic into the public, and letting them go wild talking about it. Here was what amazed me, there was not one derogatory comment, not one insult or anybody criticizing anybody else, it was all adult conversation. Very interesting.
Here's another example. There was a topic entitled "What age are are YOU!". As you can imagine, as with any online community, ages ranged from 14-70. There was no elitism, or talk of "I'm so much better than you just due to my age." And as a 14 year old myself, and experienceing online communities for a few years now, it was refreshing to not be judged at all by my age, because nobody cared, we were all there to talk about a topic we loved.
You may now be thinking, well thats all well and good, but it isn't anything special. Now here's the kicker. It's user moderated. Completely. Thats right, there isn't an abundance closed threads, because the forum is able to control its topics by its self, any banination, and surprisingly, there isn't a need. The community takes care of it's members, and manages to keep at bay any inappropriate topics such as "Post any pictures of beautiful girls you find here!", yep there was that topic, yep there was no moderation, yep, nobody posted one picture of a beautiful girl.
How can we learn from this? First, any older members, you can't airsoft forever. And when you have charged your last battery, you will be forced to pass the torch onto the younger generation, in many of your cases that's MY generation. I'm not talking or mentioning anybody in particular, but it seems to me that a lot of adults on a lot of forums have trouble respecting younger members. To me, it seems that it would be better to educate and include younger members of any hobby instead of berate and shun them. Secondly, the community must be willing and able to be mature, even when contreversial things come up, and they will and do. Lastly, we need to remember what we're all here to do, talk about airsoft, teach and share our knowledge, and act as a community should. A big family.
Just my two cents.
Thats the end of the post, so GOG, just tell me if you guys (especially the actual staff, I don't know if they will be ok with this) are ok with me posting this on another forum. Now heres the strange thing, I asked the admin of the site that I want to post this on and he told me that while he doesn't care if I post it, he doesn't agree with it in the slightest and thinks that nobody else will. I don't quite understand this because I didn't say anything that seems contreversial or disagreeable. I think that EVERYBODY can learn from this place.

Well, it's a chicken and egg situation, isn't it: Is the forum civilised because it's unmoderated, or is it unmoderated because it's civilised? We'll never know.
Personally, I think a major reason this plays stays civil is because it has a reputation for it - a self-fulfilling prophecy - but I could be completely off-base about this.

well the forum that I am hopeful to post this on is the most heavily moderated forum that I know. And for good reason, being a member there has its perks, but if you spend too long there you will get an ulcer from frustration.

What the hell are you talking about?

tl;dr

oops let me clarify. Everything from "now before I get started...." to "Thats just my two cents" is a post I wish to show a website that I frequent, that I personally believe has some room for improvement, and I think that this site could provide an example.
Cat...what lol

You know, there are closed threads here.

Hmm, not any ive ever seen, well there are not many, I am doing this particular post carefully because I don't want to offend anyone, so Ill have to change it quite a few times I believe. This is partly the reason that I wanted permission, don't want to have any misinformation.

This forum appears unmoderated because it's civilized. There have been threads moved, closed, and I'm guessing deleted. But you rarely see that because the users here don't require it. If the community was such that moderation was needed more frequently you'd see the effects of it.

A lot of older people have trouble respecting the younger generation, based on how they perceive their general behaviour (and honestly, how a lot of them act). But they act the same in response to adults who behave the same. If not in a higher retaliation.
Regardless of the age of people here, we all (mostly) act maturely and sensibly. It was how this community started, and what it attracts. Proof that your generation can be civil.
It will be quite different to go to another community and try and change it without running into controversy.
Just a note, there is moderation here but it's very rare. There are a couple of locked posts, and edited titles/posts.

I've seen a thread deleted, but as testament to how rare it is, it kind of exploded the forum system - I now have the 'new posts' flag constantly visible because there's an unread reply to one of my posts. Unfortunately it will remain unread because the thread's gone.

I actually plan on posting this to my personal blog on the site, so it will be only my opinion. Sure, it will be contreversial, but there are many members who post opinions. I fully understand that I am throwing myself up to the public with every post I make on any site. I just have been wanting to say this for a while, and I am just in need of the approval of both sites before I post this. I already was approved by the site I am posting this on, I am in search of approval from here too. I think it would be important to get a GOG staff member to OK this, I don't want to do this without an adminestrator's permission.

Well I've only really had one instance of any kind of external moderation and that was renaming a thread I made called something like "The Rape of Tom Clancy" about that abominable hawx bollocks and it was just changed to "The Abuse Of Tom Clancy".
Given the amount of crap I normally spout, I think this is a pretty damned good average.

Gosh darn you and your non-consensual sex of Tom Clancy! Was Hawx really that bad? I didn't even know it had his name on it. *shrug*

Then it's probably not 4chan...